


Fool in Love

by riddlesinthedark (MrsSaxon)



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: A Penguin who desperately misses his Riddler, Insomnia, M/M, lonely Penguin, pre-3x12, sad Penguin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 09:58:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9318209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsSaxon/pseuds/riddlesinthedark
Summary: There's nothing worse than being alone in a quiet house





	

**Author's Note:**

> In direct response to the new 3x12 teaser (finally): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T8nzVEc4TA
> 
> Set immediately after 3x11

He couldn’t remember being this tired in a long time. 

Oswald leaned forward, pinching the bridge of his nose and rubbing his tired eyes as the grandfather clock chimed 12. He should be in bed by this hour, he should be asleep. He had a speech tomorrow at a water treatment plant and public appearances all day after, god only knew, he hadn’t… he couldn’t check his schedule.

The chimes ceased to ring and Oswald’s hand fell from his face as he leaned back in his chair at the dining table. What was he doing up anyway, it wasn’t as though he didn’t have a perfectly comfortable bed upstairs that he slept in every night that he had no reason to be avoiding. By rights, he should be comfortably asleep now. But…

A pebble knocked against the door, blown by the wind, and his head automatically jerked toward the door, hoping the knocking would grow louder, hoping the door would open, hoping… He stared at it, long, empty seconds ticking by, until the thrill in his heart finally passed and the false buoyancy inside him collapsed. He slumped in his chair, already looking groggy from sleeplessness. Ed wasn’t coming home.

Oswald swallowed and loosened his tie, ultimately undoing it and throwing it on the table, his coat previously discarded hours ago. He knew that, he knew it was true. Ed was gone and he wasn’t coming back. It didn’t matter all his things were still here or that he’d never signed Ed’s resignation. Ed had left, Oswald knew it like he knew his own name and that certainty was eating him alive. 

Well, if Ed wasn’t coming home, there was no sense losing sleep over it. Oswald rose from his chair, wobbly with exhaustion, and step-dragged towards the hall, entirely forgetting about his cane. He got as far as the edge of the room and could go no further, a deep pain seizing him. Going to sleep would mean admitting this was real. Going upstairs would mean a new day would begin, a new world, in which Ed was out of his life. He couldn’t, he couldn’t force himself up those stairs and live with the idea that Ed was… really gone.

And what if Ed came back after all? How would it look if he hadn’t sat up waiting for him? What if he wasn’t there to greet him and treasure him when Ed came back, what if he thought Oswald had changed his mind, what if he turned and left because he wasn’t there…?

Oswald ripped away from the doorway and stumbled back to the couch. No, he would stay here, at his post. Couldn’t sleep anyway. Oswald almost fell, gracelessly, onto the couch, sinking into the cushions. He ached with weariness, all through his body, like his heart felt too much and his body was trying to compensate. Oswald stifled a soft moan in a pillow, upset and upset with his own weakness.

Minutes later, he blearily looked up at the clock but the numbers refused to be coherent, refused to order themselves in a logical order of time. But it didn’t matter. He’d look like shit tomorrow no matter how little or much sleep he got tonight, that was for certain. Giving up on further movement, Oswald pulled off his shoes. As long as he was stuck down here, in denial, he might as well be comfortable. He brought his legs up onto the couch, tucking them under a cushion and caught a look at the portrait he’d commissioned, was it just a week ago? In just one week…

Oswald gulped and dragged his eyes away. There was, after all, the barest chance Ed would come back… there was just that chance. But it felt like mockery to believe it. 

Oswald settled back into the cushions, silent, apart from the occasional sniff he was trying to ignore. It might be a fool’s chance, but he was a fool in love.


End file.
